So I'm Old..

Got home from work tonight and walked into the house through the kitchen door. I had the thermostat set on 67 and it was 64 in the house. Now I am all about keeping cool all with my hot flashes, but knowing Massey is sleeping on the bottom floor of the house  and winter has made it's appearance known the past two days... it worried me.

I didn't want to open the attic door on  the top floor of the house,  flooding the upstairs with cold air in case it was something I couldn't quickly fix but did it anyway. The furnace was making noise so I scampered back down the stairs and quickly shut the door.

Like the new age techno savvy mom I am I went to Face book for an answer, getting post after post from a friend of mine from when I worked for Johnny's Pizza back in the early eighties. That's what broke people like..."Free advice."

We went through several question and answer  posts and after determining it was a gas furnace and secretly going into my kitchen to light the stove top to make sure we hadn't had our gas turned off, my friend mentioned maybe I should check the batteries in my digital thermostat. Heck I didn't even know it HAD batteries! I pulled the cover off and discovered three totally dust covered AA batteries. I went around the house and pulled three AA batteries out of remote controls and plugged them in. When the thermostat came back on the numbers were so bright it looked like a neon sign in Vegas.

I was on the phone by this point with my sister. It was cold in  the house so I started drinking some wine Barb had given me from work. (A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to keep warm.)

When I changed the batteries we went from 64 to 65 in a matter of five minutes.

I told my sister I never even knew the thermostat ran on batteries.  It reminded me of the time when the kids were still young and they came out with the wireless mouse for your computer. Of course when they first came out you paid like thirty bucks for one and since we were still doing well back then I ran out to Circuit City and purchased it.

About eight months later it stopped working and I took the mouse back to the store. I told the woman behind the service counter  it had stopped working and wanted another one. She asked me if the batteries in it were new? I said I didn't know it took batteries and she simply replied "Baby, did you  think it was magic?"

Well as matter of fact I did! It came with a little plug in for my modem and I thought it was working off of that.  I felt like an idiot (what else is new) when she put in two AA batteries and it worked like a champ.

So a digital thermostat has batteries too... Learned me another lesson! We are back up to 65 but still a little chilly. I think my batteries were dead in my thermostat but may have a furnace problem too. Just going to bed with the oven on 200 degrees and dealing with it tomorrow.

Massey has a space heater in her room and I have one in the kitchen. All the rest of us are on the third floor where it is five degrees warmer.

Surviving another night here in the Cotton compound. If we can can live without money for two years we can make it one night without heat!

At least I don't have to worry about hot flashes tonight...

COTTON